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27 maart 2017

PART TWO: Find all the words and memories over at the first part of this blog;
I will just keep this one photo-only for now. I'm leaving to the UK for
an assignment soon (wednesday actually) and I still have so much to
take care of here before I'm out!

This is the second day I took
my camera out when I was at the sea past fall (Zoutelande, Netherlands).
We had the best weather ever; insanely warm. Barefoot walking in the
sea & collecting seashells is what I remember best. And a
double-terrace-with-view-at-the-sea-on-the-beach.

22 maart 2017

I think spring is pretty much in my mind right now. Or maybe it's that in life that subtile yet there inevitable happens over time: when your value changes, you discover new passions and subtile things from the past pop up. My mom always had amazing green fingers and she definitely got it from my grandmother. I - therefore - don' have those. I could even let succulents die! So I never really bothered for a long time to bring in some plants (in fact, my mom gave me some fake ones from Ikea as she knows me a bit too well).However. Things can go left and right and change sometimes and one of those two big changes of interest I've been developing lately are two "typical feminine" (whatever that means): its make-up and beauty ... and plants. As you might have guessed already as I dropped a hint or five. And you know, it's great. It all started pretty much after my boyfriend gifted me some flowers for my birthday & that moment I realised how happy those little things made me. I finally grabbed my courage together after todays shoot and went too Nada around the corner of my studio. And came back with some beautiful little pots and three more plants to add to my little growing collection & interior goal. They also had these lovely little pots with bugs on it!

From today shoot for my portfolio I also needed flowers for a beautiful hairdo or two; which resulted in a bunch of leftover roses and other flowers which are now happily displayed at my window to be enjoyed until they bloom out (and I can dry them hopefully to add to that collection).

Pretty curious where this beautiful obsession will get me now! Do you have a love for plants or succulents? Or you don't have the green fingers for it?

21 maart 2017

This is one of those things I - in the past - never shared before :
photos I would take when wandering around the world. I tried but rarely
it got the response on my social media & when I switched to owning
both as a full-time independent business I quited almost completely.

However,
this blog came to existence not so long ago and it has given me this
personal platform to share more of this. It's pretty liberating actually
after curating my work on my other platforms to match my business &
business model. But enough of that!

Here is the first photo-journal of my
weekend at the sea this fall. I always loved the sea a lot and it was
the first time I was able to "let go" after quitting my daytime job
& starting to pursue my own business. It was also the first time my boyfriend went with me & my family on vacation ... So it was a great amount-of-many-firsts that I embraced with open arms & a big smile.

We spend a lot of time just walking: with the first day having a lot more wind and gloom (like a real fall day at the sea); the second day we walked barefoot on the beach (and I in the sea, as thats what I do best). Enjoying the sun on our faces. We collected shells, looked for little fossils (we didn't find any, childhood-dreams crushed) & we had a great amount of talks about anything and everything.

These are the photos of the first day I took my camera with me. The second day blog will follow soon!

20 maart 2017

Sometimes, the things that have felt very common for me have become unusual and a little bit too ... much off an adventure. It's something I realised and might want to talk a bit about maybe later because it's a struggle I have about "how much should(n't) I adult? Thought thats for another blog.

The current big question was: "What shall I do with my hair?" - I'm not a shy one when it comes my hair & the cuts I do; the shorter the better is my thing (I tried growing it out for the mermaid-hair-braiding-goals but ... meh. It's not me. I do made a compromise right now to grow one side long & keep the other my lovely inch-short!).

The thing I've been wanting more than mermaid hair was a beautiful color. There is something that I've always found incredibly interesting about colored hair and considering 9/10 of my friendsgroup had/have pretty much (literally) a rainbow on their head. One after another or all at once: it's hard to resist to not follow the madness.

It's not that I never had it! In fact I had more than average (regular people of course. I will leave my current social group out because those ladies are pretty much insane): I had once bright green & black. I had little parts blue and red. I also once bleached my hair white (without taking care of it with all following results ... It's my source of "I don't want to bleach anymore" because my hair pretty much died of it. Yup. Thats what happens Laura ... Lazy bum). It left me in a state of wanting to have color for over 1.5 years now basically: I wanted to go back white or grey, maybe even throw a beautiful rust-orange-red. Didn't happen because the first would require some more bleaching, a lot of care & even more bleaching and honestly I don't feel like putting that much effort into it. And with my natural-face-complexion red might be a great option - if I do the full face makeup on a daily base - . Not happening either, even though I'm pretty much having my own tiny midlife crisis and I'm really enjoying a good makeup day (even if it's really basic). I'm not making myself any illusions.

However: I'm a natural blond. And even with unbleached hair ... pastels became an option. Also because: pastels wash out quickly. Which means I don't have to really settle-settle for a long time. Pastels come in a wide variety as well. I don't need to bleach. And I can settle on a lot of colors because off all the reasons mentioned above. So pastels slowly became a little obsession again ... And I decided to go for something easy: lavender hair.

I wanted to throw in some lavender directions & have at least that little bit of fun for maybe a week or two max. So I asked my dear friend Beli if she could help me out with dying & bring some leftover lavender that she had left as mine didn't arrive yet. When I went to the Kruidvat for gloves, I stumbled upon this "Colorista Washout" from L'Oreal. I've heard about it, I got curious. And I got myself two. This one & pastel blue.

Cuz why the **** not? It was my birthday week. Lets do a little yolo!

The one I decided to throw into my hair. I thought it would be a lavender-ish color (like it said on the box).

My original haircolor. Decided to use this epic photo by Brandy Lauren to show off my natural hair color.

In the end, it turned out more grey-blue-silver with all kind of shades in between, changing color depending of the light as well. And I can't be more bloody happy about it! It will probably be out after a week or two max (hear me weep, please stay for at least a month or two!) but at the same time it's also a lot of fun: there are twelve colors in total and I feel an occassional "crazy pastel hair week" every month or two coming up just because why not?

It's such a small change but I haven't feel as confident and beautiful in over a year. It's strange because in the end; it's "just hair color" . I didn't loose the weight I need to loose, I haven't bought a new wardrobe, I didn't get a new haircut. I just threw some color in. And it's like a magick charm. Even a hot chocolat with marshamallows can't make me as happy as this hair-dye-do did to me right now. And its an amazing feeling to finally feel beautiful again.

Happy-Hair-Do ; can we also appreciate the gorgeous craftmanship around my neck from Cu Nature?

19 maart 2017

Here we are again. The 19th of march, watching Frontier while putting the last bits and pieces together in my head from my little birthday week. I turned 26 this week, the 15th to be exact. I still feel pretty weird as 26 is such an interesting number. Its creeping up the 27 ... and closer to 30. There is no "I'm still a young adult" anymore. It's that age where people wonder a great many things. It's that age where going out makes you tired at 3 in the night when a good year ago it was easily at 5 or 6 when the birds started singing in the morning you wondered where the night went too. I'm starting to look for those first wrinkles and wondering if I should buy "anti-age cream". It's that kind of age. Slowly but steady.

It's also my first blog since many years again. Maybe something impulsive, yet something I've been wanting for a long time. I miss blogging, I miss writing down these thoughts and looking back and sharing a great many things. Not like on my job, I share daily a lot of things there that are beautiful and inspiring and interesting (I hope). But this is different: I miss sometimes being able to share more beautiful things, thoughts, my upcoming beauty experiences and little moments to make people smile. I miss writing in general I think too. And starting a blog again when you just turned 26 as some kind of personal birthday present is amazing too.

This year, my birthday was divided over half a week (my favorite kind).
Wednesday itself I met up with my oh so gorgeous boyfriend for a real
'adult' morning brunch in Tartine here in Antwerp. A little space I've
seen many times already, always crowded as hell but never went too. It
ended up being a bit decadent for our terms but that's what birthdays
are for right? The older, the better. I think.

(Here are some little phone snaps)

We started off good: he choose fresh juice, I went for a very decadent white hot chocolat with more white chocolat and whipped cream. The sun started sneaking in as well so it was getting better by the second.

Our actual brunch. So good. Lots of nomming included. And more sun! I'm a spring-and-summer-child. I need sun. I need warmth. There is nothing that makes me happier then being outside and warming up and enjoying those little moments. This was one of my top 3 favs from my birthday gifts, thanks Mother Nature!

We finished off with (for him) more fresh juice (I did end up stealing half if it, I'm good at stealing food from him. Especially nummie things like fresh juice!). I had a very good "sweet" tea, can't remember what was in there but it was lots of berries, carrot (I know right?), more nommie things. And some sun. Still. It was so good.

After I went home, ordered fish & chips for dinner through Deliveroo (seriously if you're in Antwerp & want to order in or go eat some good stuff: check Bia Mara!). For the rest of the day I ended up playing a great find in Fnac (for just 20 bucks!): Rise Of The Tomb Raider.

Lara Croft is a weak spot in gaming for me, it was one of my first "real" shooters/action & adventure games back in the early days. Including cheats, pointy boobs & weird graphics. And of course: locking in the butler in the fridge. Duh! I don't drink alcohol so I bought myself some "kids champagne" (themes was Frozen or Minions ... so it was a quick & easy decision) & enjoyed my birthday all on my own. It was good!

I haven't been gaming as much as I want so having a great excuse to myself like my birthday was thé opportunity for indulging myself for many hours straight of fun.

Of course, a birthday party isn't real as long as you haven't seen your friends. So I organised this saturday a little thing at my appartment with a little party-in-the-city afterwards (we went out until 3, being silly pants and dancing like the local derp confusing people). It was good. Just like gaming, thanks to work I barely to not saw them anymore and I feel making time for those things called "friendship" is something I should put high on my priority list.

Birthday table !

The birthday riddersquad team. One of my lovely beauties had to leave a bit earlier & I didn't take photos when we where hanging around at the appartment. We didn't forgot to take an elevator selfie though. Below is my found-back-bestie Beli; which I've missed more then terribly. One of the things I've learned is that time goes fast & as freelancer, time goes even faster. Somehow months and years have flew by and we lost touch. Hopefully, the winds have brought us together now again now I realise there are equally as important things as owning my own business and that is spending time on the business called "yourself".

Oh I got a weird birthday present too, which is pretty much of an inside joke. I adore it for many wrong reasons! Oh and last but not least: turns out my Mitmunk cyborg leggings are
amazing under blacklight. I was a little attraction I think ... didn't
think my attire through; as usual.This sums up my life.

Handsome boyfriend & I just before we parted ways a few hours ago.

We are sunday afternoon now, I'm feeling pretty fine after the party and I'm still enjoying Frontier while wrapping up this blog. And admiring these pretty flowers my boyfrien gave me! One needs a lot of love as the shop really didn't take good care of them but it will be a little interesting projects to train my "not-so-green-fingers". I've developed this passion for flowers lately more & more (just like many other things. Like makeup. And hair ... I guess, turning 26 does make me more of an adult maybe. Or maybe, this is just a whole new adventure like this blog).